Andy Staples predicts 2024 college football season will be most electrifying since 2007

On3’s Andy Staples is high on the 2024 college football season as it’ll be the most electrifying campaign since 2007.

“Remember 2007 started with Appalachian State beating Michigan and it never actually got sane at any point along the way,” Staples said on his show on the On3 YouTube channel. “You had Louisiana Monroe beating Alabama. You had the final day of the season, so remember at that point, some leagues had championship games, others didn’t. So in the Big 12 championship game you had Missouri versus Oklahoma and Missouri won the game. Missouri was going to play for the national title. Then over in the Big East you had the final regular season game. You (got) the Backyard Brawl, West Virginia heavily favored over Pitt. 

“If West Virginia won, they were gonna play the national title game. So you woke up with the possibility of a Missouri-West Virginia national title game and when you went to bed, the national title game was Ohio State versus LSU. Two-loss LSU by the way, which, this was the BCS era.” 

So if that college football season sounded wild, you haven’t seen anything yet. Staples went on to dive deep into 2007 while comparing it to modern day with the new 12-team playoff bracket and more.

“Well, you might have a two-loss team in the national title game this year, because you got a 12 team playoff, you got brand new conference alignments. We’ve gotten to mega conferences at this point,” Staples said. “You have a 16-team SEC, an 18-team Big 12, a 16-team Big 12, 17-team ACC that includes two teams from California. This is a crazy, crazy situation. Only strange things are gonna happen. Things we haven’t seen before are going to happen. The dynamics with the rules of the new playoff are going to make things very interesting. We’ve said this on the show like being No. 5 in the playoff seeding, which doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the No. 5 team in the country. 

“You can be the No. 2 team or the No. 3 team and wind up the fifth seed, depending on how everything shakes out because conference champs have to occupy those first four seats. So we don’t know what it’s going to look like.” 

Why 2024 college football season will be like 2007 or better

So another way this coming college football season can be absolutely whacky is the fact November is loaded. Not that it wasn’t before, but there’s seemingly more implications on a lot of big games.

“There are gonna be a lot of games in November that we would have just yawned through that now have an effect on multiple teams throughout the country,” Staples said. “With what happened say between 2007 and now, you had the dominance of the SEC for a while where it was that SEC national title streak. We had, you know, Florida wins it, LSU and Alabama win, Florida wins again. Alabama then goes on its run and it’s not broken til Florida State wins in 2013. But then it starts again where Alabama is very much dominant. 

“And the four-team playoff comes in, which intensified our focus on the national championship. But because it was a four-team playoff all but, you know, five (or) six teams feel eliminated by the end of October.” 

So with an extended bracket this college football season, post-Halloween games might actually be nuts.

“Now, you’re gonna have games that are meaningful, you’re gonna have probably 20 teams in the hunt at the end of October,” Staples said. “And as November comes along you’re gonna have games that affect not just the two teams playing them, but two teams in other conferences, three teams in other conferences, depending on where everybody’s seated or where everybody’s ranked. There are gonna be a lot of ripple effects. And I know some of you don’t like this. I’m going to laugh at you at the end of the season when you’re like ‘yeah, this was way better.’ 

“The four-team playoff was dumb. The BCS was dumb. The old bowl system was incredibly stupid. There is a reason everybody else ends their season with a tournament because that’s the best way to do it. The most entertaining way to do it. And don’t say ‘well that made college football different.’ No, it just made college football dumb. This will be better. This will be more fun.”